Saturday, May 16, 2009

... when the game is over there are always a handful of young women hovering around the players ... They want to hook up with a player. [...]

I make no judgment, but I do have a problem with women who can't make an educated choice: "If I go back to that player's hotel room or even out to a toilet cubicle at the back of a nightclub, can I really trust that the player I left with will be the only player there when I arrive, or even half-an-hour later?"

If we want starstruck young women to make an educated guess, perhaps we should educate them? If I steal that lipstick off the shelf, there's a good chance I'll be caught on security camera, charged by police and appear in court. We are taught that.

If McDonald is concerned for the safety of girls and women then she needs to not conflate stealing lipstick with being the victim of gang rape unless it is to tell us that there are always people hovering just out of sight waiting for a wrong move before they pounce.

In the first case, the wrong move is stealing and the response is a shoplifting arrest. In the second case, the "wrong move" is walking to a more isolated location with 1 individual player and the response is gang rape. Too many people call the response in the second situation the consequence because this fits their ideology. But this is the ideology of rapists.

McDonald is accidentally communicating that any excuses by players that an alleged gang rape was a result of an honest misunderstanding are lies. She's seen and understood their regular MO, she just doesn't see it as their problem.

If I go into a hotel toilet or up in the lift with a player/players to a room, there's a good chance I'll be filmed on CCTV or a mobile phone and, if something goes horribly wrong, I have no recourse in the courts. Maybe we need to start teaching teenage girls that.

By "something goes horribly wrong," she means rape and more likely gang rape. Something going horribly wrong in a player's room would be the toilet overflowing with water and its fresh contents.

Rape is never something going horribly wrong, it is some rapist going horribly wrong.

What McDonald is teaching girls is that Australia and many other countries will ignore gang rape as long as the gang rapists didn't drag their victim into a room. This position means gang rape is treated by the police similarly to jurisdictions where seat belt laws are never issued on their own but only in conjunction with another violation.

This makes not wearing your seat belt and committing gang rape similar types of crimes.

By scolding women McDonald is taking the position that men who rape are morally superior to women who have consensual sex. It also tells us that gang rape by sportsmen is no freak occurrence by a few rogue players but instead happens regularly when athletes can get someone to willingly walk with 1 or more athletes to a different more isolated location.

If McDonald is aware of gang rapes which are done in the way she describes she should have called the police. To do nothing about repeated gang rapes except write an article scolding girls and women is .... I don't have the words for what this is other than complicit.

If a woman consents to have sex with 1 player and a whole team might be hiding around the corner waiting that's not only gang rape that's premeditated gang rape. Yet in this narrative it is the target of this gang rape who is the transgressor.

We are taught that stealing lipstick is a crime, but apparently sports players are not taught that committing gang rape is a crime.

If any sports player cannot tell the difference between hooking up and raping, that sports player needs to abstain from all sexual contact until he learns the difference. But read McDonald's suggested education plan:

The ideal place to strike at the core of the problem is high school, through programs held in tandem with sex education and lifestyle or career counselling classes, or through the media with government-backed mass advertising programs.

Not too long ago, the national TV advertising campaign "Violence Against Women - Australia Says No" sent powerful messages. How about a campaign "Going to Hotel Rooms With Several Men - Australia Says Think Again"?

This in no way strikes at the core of the problem which is rape. This suggested campaign supports rapists and would likely increase the rate of sexual violence. The implied crime is girls and women going to a hotel room and the implied punishment for that crime is gang rape.

I say to McDonald and all who agree with her, think again.

If there were any campaign to prevent this type of crime it needs to be directed at exposing the premeditation in this type of crime and doing away with the excuses for rape.

5 Comments:

Excellent post. Why do the people who write these articles place the blame for rape on a woman? I can understand the process of protecting yourself as a woman, but I do not understand the people who openly shame women in articles that claim they are passing on some valuable information to other women.

Yet another article (sigh) on women blaming. No woman or girl irrespective of what safety measures she takes guarantees her 100% safety with regards to mundane and routine male sexual violence.

If we believe victims of crime are alone responsible for such criminal acts, then if a man is mugged or physically assaulted by another man, the male victim is the one responsible not the perpetrator.

Men who engage in single or group rape of women do not suddenly become victims of their so-called uncontrollable male sexual desires, but what these men do is to make a deliberate choice and plan their attacks. How this works varies and includes manipulation, coercion and deception whereby such men claim 'don't you trust me,' or 'it's okay I'm a nice guy.'

Prevention means targetting those men and boys who adhere to patriarchy's claims women and girls are responsible for preventing men and boys from committing rape.

Rape is the only crime whereby the female survivor(s) have their behaviour and actions minutely examined. Men who commit single/group rape are not subjected to scrutiny or blame in respect of their actions and behaviour.

Neither do we hold murdered victims responsible for causing their own murders even if the victim had engaged in 'risky behaviour' prior to their murder.

Women blaming is a diversionary tactic and its sole purpose is to hide male accountability and responsibility.

Ladies, are you aware that fraternity gang rape takes days of premeditated high level planning? When it happened to me, gang rape and acquaintance rape were unheard of. Not until after my memories came back in 2005, did I realize that I was among several naive victims of this crime. It used to be a cycle repeated year after year, as a method of bonding. Breaking their code of silence is practically impossible. Please visit my blog atwww.georgia-tech-rape-victim2.blogspot.comThanks to Marcella, as always.Georgia Girl

I really agree. While there is clearly value in educating women about the reality of sexual abuse from men, that is not "the ideal place to strike at the core of the problem" because the core of the problem is men's behaviour.

A sad fact is that the only acceptable way to discuss rape in most commercial media is to bemoan the foolishness of the woman who was raped for "putting herself in that situation" or, at very best, to lament the tragedy of rape in a general sense. Commentary which places the responsibility for men's actions on the men who commit the actions seems too 'out there' for most newspapers and news broadcasts to contemplate. What hope does that give us of reading a discussion in which sexual violation of women by men is seen as an integral part of the power structure of the dominant system?

Wow. If I never have to see another article where some asshole like McDonald compares rape victims to criminals, I will be so, so fucking happy. How on earth is walking somewhere isolated while female as immoral as stealing?

I mean, hell, if women really are being so immoral by going to an "isolated" area (and since when is the bathroom in a club all that isolated, anyhow?) then we need to start making laws against it, and any woman found going to the bathroom at a club or walking somewhere with a man she doesn't know should be charged. Of course, this doesn't apply to men. They will be freely allowed to go where they want because they're fully human, but any woman doing ANYTHING that could cause her to get raped will be charged and incarcerated. Since rape can happen anywhere and in any situation, this just means we'll have to incarcerate all women. But of course, being incarcerated puts women at an even higher risk of rape, so even by being in prison they'll be committing a crime!

Also, McDonald would do well to realize that most women are raped by someone they know. Therefore, the most "foolish" thing a woman can do is be alone anywhere with a male relative, boyfriend or trusted male friend. (And I use "foolish" very, very sarcastically.) Maybe McDonald should write an article on that, on how women should just create societies entirely separate from men if they want to be safe from rape. Except oh wait, then she'd look like a radical separatist, which would not be at all pleasing to the male bosses at Fox whose asses she's trying so desperately to kiss. I would laugh my ass off if some male supremacist at Fox realized just how insulting her article is to men as well -- "Wait, so you're saying ALL men are rapists and can never be trusted alone with women?" Funny how patriarchy lovers never seem to notice that aspect of arguments like this.

About Abyss2hope

Abyss2hope is centered on date rape, but isn't limited to discussing crimes which can be described this way since the causes and attitudes related to date rape are interconnected with domestic violence and other types of sexual violence.

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